Enabling Big Data Insight for Millions of Windows Developers

At Hortonworks, we fundamentally believe that, in the not-so-distant future, Apache Hadoop will process over half the world’s data flowing through businesses. We realize this is a BOLD vision that will take a lot of hard work by not only Hortonworks and the open source community, but also software, hardware, and solution vendors focused on the Hadoop ecosystem, as well as end users deploying platforms powered by Hadoop.

If the vision is to be achieved, we need to accelerate the process of enabling the masses to benefit from the power and value of Apache Hadoop in ways where they are virtually oblivious to the fact that Hadoop is under the hood. Doing so will help ensure time and energy is spent on enabling insights to be derived from big data, rather than on the IT infrastructure details required to capture, process, exchange, and manage this multi-structured data.

So how can we accelerate the path to this vision? Simply put, we focus on enabling the largest communities of users interested in deriving value from big data.

Since one of the world’s most widely used business intelligence tools is Microsoft Excel, and since Microsoft is arguably one of the best companies at enabling and mobilizing large and vibrant developer communities, needless to say we at Hortonworks are excited and bullish on the expansion of our partnership with Microsoft.

This news represents a significant inflection point for the big data market in general and for the importance of open source Apache Hadoop in particular. Unlocking the Windows Server and Windows Azure markets for Hadoop means more businesses will be able to tap into its benefits.

Moreover, these new offerings represent months of joint engineering work across both the Microsoft and Hortonworks engineering and product teams. Microsoft’s commitment to doing this work in a way that improves open source Apache Hadoop and related Apache projects has been unwavering; which translates into goodness for the open source community.

I encourage you to try out the fruits of our labors in one of two ways:

• Download Microsoft HDInsight Server and play with Hadoop on your own Windows machine.
• Access Windows Azure HDInsight Service and play with Hadoop in the cloud.